Lessons from landslips

As the Uttar Pradesh Government tries to evolve a long-term disaster management policy for the hill regions of Kumaon and Garhwal, there is public scepticism about its approach to the issue.

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN

THE Nainital Flats, situated adjacent to the hill town's picturesque lake, is described as a superb natural amphitheatre. Polo, cricket and hockey tournaments are held here. Among those who practised here were several great hockey players of yesteryear. The Flats is also a major tourist attraction; it presents a spectacular view from the Mall, which forms a gallery of sorts above it.

Ironically, it was a landslip in 1880 in the Sher-ka-Danda ridge overlooking Nainital that created the Flats. Parts of the town, including a hotel, a shop, assembly rooms used by British civil servants and army officers and the rooms of their orderlies, were buried under the rubble. The main reason for the catastrophe, which left 151 persons dead or missing, as cited in official documents, was that the "digging of fresh building sites on the Alma hill - of which the Sher-ka-Danda ridge was a part - together with the cutting of the hillside for gardens, roads and tennis courts permitted the crust to become overcharged with water." It is also said that the "destruction of the grassy covering of the slopes had greatly facilitated the introduction of rain water into the hill."

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The Kali flowing through the valley near Malpa.

Records show that the colonial administration's response to the catastrophe was creative. It sought to minimise the ill-effects of human intervention in the hills. Erection of buildings, quarrying in and digging of the slopes, even grazing in the hills were banned. Trees and grass were planted in many parts of the Alma hills and the debris of the landslip was levelled to create the Nainital Flats. Another measure was the construction of the first-ever drainage system in the hills in and around Nainital, between 1880 and 1885. The drainage system covered 79 km, and geologists and environmentalists are unanimous that this was a major factor that checks the environmental destruction of Nainital.

ONE hundred and eighteen years later, the reasons for the Malpa and Ukhimath disasters, which left more than 300 persons dead or missing, are similar to those cited in 1880. Apart from natural factors such as the high level of seismicity in the region and the heavy rainfall this year, there were man-made factors, such as deforestation, indiscriminate construction of roads and buildings, mining and excavation activities. The one major difference is that there is public scepticism about a creative post-calamity response from the administration.

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Hillsides shaken by blasts during road construction.

Environmental activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt told Frontline that the tragedy at Malpa in Kumaon and Ukhimath in Garhwal attracted international attention essentially because of the scale of casualties and the fact that some of the victims were celebrities. He said: "This attention is worthwhile only if it helps to motivate the authorities to heed the warning signals coming from the Kumaon-Garhwal hills as a whole and take steps to prevent further environmental destruction and to reduce the number of accidents."

Geologist Dr. K.S. Valdiya, who hails from the region, said that there were innumerable danger spots like Malpa and Ukhimath in Kumaon and Garhwal. He drew attention to the fact that the situation in Nainital town itself is dangerous. The first landslip of the season occurred at Nainital in the last week of July. Although there were no casualties, a portion of the hills surrounding the town submerged in the lake. Valdiya said that the current debate among specialists and in the administration about evolving a long-term disaster management policy would bear fruit only if other such spots were identified and monitored constantly and preventive measures taken.

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A landslip on the road to Nainital.

Recent experience, however, does not indicate that the authorities will rise to the challenge. Movements led by non-governmental organisations have highlighted the environmental destruction of the U.P. hills owing to the deforestation caused by the illegal timber trade, reckless construction of buildings and roads, encroachment into forests, and indiscriminate pursuit of agriculture in areas that are not suitable for it. Two movements which captured international attention in the 1980s were the Chipko Andolan against deforestation and the Arakote to Ascote yatra, which focussed on the need for balanced development of the hills. However, these did not help put an end to the assault on the flora and fauna of the hills.

Development initiatives from the Government have often contributed to the degradation of the hills. Ajay Singh Rawat, Chairperson of the International Union of Forestry and Research Organisation, told Frontline that studies by geologists and environmentalists in the last 15 years had revealed that 60 to 80 mature trees were felled for every 1 km of new road constructed in the hills. He added that the Government had not implemented an effective scheme to set off this loss. "Unfortunately," Rawat said, "what is going on in the name of social forestry in most places in the hills is antithetical to the very concept of afforestation." In the majority of areas, government agencies planted pine and eucalyptus trees, which drained the soil around them of its water content and, as a result, made other saplings die. As grass does not grow under pine and eucalyptus trees, the soil under them is weakened further. This heightened the possibility of landslips.

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A landslip in Nainital in the last week of July. Portions of the surrounding hills were submerged in the lake.

Rawat questioned the methods adopted for the construction of roads by government agencies and their contractors. For four decades, environmentalists and geologists have warned that rocks should not be blasted using explosives as such explosions would aggravate seismic disturbances and the debris would damage plants and saplings. Studies have revealed that every kilometre of road constructed through the blasting method caused the accumulation of 40,000 to 80,000 cubic metres of debris. Another 411 cubic metres of debris gets accumulated annually for every kilometre of road, during maintenance work. The debris impedes the regeneration of plants and saplings, and this intensifies soil erosion. This, in turn, increases the ferocity of the rivers and streams, leading to massive landslips. However, Rawat says, these warnings have not been heeded. Dynamite blasts continue to be the contractors' preferred method to clear blocks of rock. The damage caused thus can be seen in the form of shaken hills all over Kumaon and Garhwal.

The internationally accepted method for constructing hill roads is the "half cutting-half filling" method. This is relatively time-consuming as the rocks are cut and chipped and the debris is used to fill the roads. It is also relatively costly. However, the long-term benefit is that there is no massive uprooting of trees, and this reduces soil erosion. The higher cost of construction is what deters government agencies from employing the procedure. However, Rawat, who has studied road construction in the hills over the last 15 years, argues that as the procedure involves more work, unnecessary lengthening of roads is avoided by reducing the number of loops and bends. He says: "Contractors like the roads to be long and winding with many loops and bends because that brings them a heftier contract." Corruption also aggravates the environmental degradation.

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Ajay Singh Rawat.

Large-scale deforestation on account of legal as well as illegal felling of trees holds ominous portents for Kumaon and Garhwal. According to a study conducted by environmentalist L.S. Shah, "The productivity of the Himalayan forests is low compared to the rainforests and the depletion rate of forests is 5.8 per cent a year." Citing statistics, Valdiya said that there was a possibility of the Kumaon hills becoming barren in the next half a century. Environmentalists have detected signs of zerophyatic conditions (desertification) in many areas of Kumaon and Garhwal with cactus growing in the once-verdant hills.

Vehicular pollution and disturbance in the hills are other causes for worry. The movement of heavy vehicles intensifies the disturbance beneath the hills and aggravates the seismicity. In 1995, a group of environmentalists moved the Supreme Court for a ban on the movement of heavy vehicles on the Mall road in Nainital and in the bridle paths on hillsides. The court banned heavy vehicular traffic on Mall road; however, the order is flouted regularly. It is said that this is one of the factors that contributed to the recent landslip in Nainital.

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Dr. R.S. Toliya.

The dominant opinion in academic and lay circles in Kumaon and Garhwal is that the long-term disaster management policy being evolved by the Government will be meaningless unless it is accompanied by strong measures to curb the degeneration of the hills caused by illegal, unscientific and unnecessary human intervention. Valdiya said that the policy should also be aimed at responding quickly to natural factors that cause disasters, such as heavy rainfall and seismic movement. Studies conducted by Valdiya show that the Dharchula-Bajang area on the Indo-Nepal border - Malpa is in this region - and the Uttarakashi area in Garhwal are prone to extreme tectonic unrest. Between 1906 and 1991, there were 13 major earthquakes in this region.

There has been no proper monitoring of seismic movements of low intensity, which cause landslips. Dr. R.S. Toliya, Director of the Uttar Pradesh Academy of Administration based at Nainital and a senior bureaucrat hailing from Kumaon, is of the view that there should be a mechanism to gauge even minor seismic movements so that people can be warned about them. Toliya added that rainfall should also be monitored carefully, as denuded forests and grass cover in the hills lead to landslips even when the rainfall is moderate. This year, rainfall has been unusually high all over Uttar Pradesh, and a close scrutiny of this would have helped the authorities to take better preventive measures even at Malpa.

By all indications, the Government is consulting specialists and incorporating their views in the long-term disaster management policy. But, as Chandi Prasad Bhatt said, the will and attitude of those who implement the policy will principally determine its success. Rawat added: "The question is also how far the authorities would go to involve the people and make it their programme." He said that a lot would depend on the answer to this question, especially in the background of the corrupt practices that defeat well-intentioned initiatives. Certainly, the answer to these questions will show whether the policymakers and administrators have learnt their lessons from the tragedy of Malpa and Ukhimath.

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